Little Motel

I hope that you like it in your little motel

And I hope that the suite sleeps and suits you well

Another year passes and I miss you as much as I ever have. It’s different now than it was, but the scar still remains deep inside. I truly hope that your decision has brought you the peace and freedom that you sought. I still don’t judge you or hold it against you. It’s not my place, nor the place of anyone else, to pass judgement on the validity of your decision to end your own life. It doesn’t mean I support it, but I will never think any less of you because of it.

I still have so many questions, but the cold reality is that there are no answers. Even if there were, they wouldn’t solve anything or bring me any sort of comfort. Ultimately, the only thing that matters is that you’re gone. I lost a friend and a part of myself that day, when the world was deprived of a beautiful, talented and oh so special individual. It goes without saying that you will always be missed, but you will continue to live on in every person you touched in your 17 years on this planet.

The worst part is forgetting. I still know and remember you, but the intuitive part is slowly slipping away. It takes more time to recall your voice or your face or how it felt to be around you. I can’t imagine more time is going to stop or even slow down this process. It breaks my heart. I have no desire to forget anything about you. I’d give up everything I have to see you one more time.

I’ve thought about how I’d feel if I went insane. If I started to see you. I’d be okay with it. In fact, I would welcome it with open arms. Anything to bring you back. Anything to take away this gaping hole inside of me. It tears at my insides, ripping me apart from within. I feel hardened now. Nothing can really bother me anymore. I hear horror stories of rape and murder but I just really don’t care. It’s not that I think it’s okay, or petty spite that if I’m in pain so should everyone else. I just don’t care. I’ve lost it. There are precious few things that can make me feel any sort of emotion at all. I feel so broken and utterly hopeless.

I was really looking forward to becoming closer to you in university. We had drifted apart a bit from how we used to be back in elementary school. I am so sorry for that, it’s something I don’t know if I can ever forgive myself for. But I was excited about getting it back. You would have been one of my best friends. I was thinking about seeing you more than anyone else, and it made moving away seem bearable. Then I lost you and I slipped away. I lost everything that year. It was the worst period of my short life. I needed you to be my anchor, and it hurts so much that you weren’t. Please don’t misconstrue this as anger or resentment or any of those terrible things. It was just too much to deal with at one time, and my own petty problems still pale in comparison to everything you had to go through. I can’t apologize enough for being a part of the shit you had to put up with. I hope that you viewed me as a reason to live, and not a reason to die. At the very least I hope that with hindsight you would consider me a positive in your life, but of course I would understand if I was one of the reasons. I’m so sorry.

I don’t believe in any form of god, deity or afterlife, but I certainly hope I’m wrong. I just want to know you’re still there, somehow, beyond the parts of yourself that we’ve all adopted. I want you to be able to see me live my life, not just me, but everyone who cared about and loved you. I hope I can make you proud. I hope that you’d be proud to be my friend, that I am one of the people carrying on your legacy. It’s hard to imagine you would be, given the way I view myself, but I hope to god that one day you might. I don’t believe in god anymore, but I would be lying if I said that I’ve never said a prayer begging for you to be at peace. That’s how much I care. I’ll try anything, even if it flies directly in the face of something I so strongly disagree with. A trait I no doubt picked up from you in life that has only gotten stronger since your tragic passing.

I don’t deserve any of the good things that life has thrown my way. You didn’t deserve any of the bad you had to face. I’d go back and swap places with you every single time, given the opportunity. Maybe I’m making myself miserable now because of that guilt. It’s a thought that’s crossed my mind on more than one occasion.

I recently had the strongest urge I’ve ever had to follow in your footsteps and end my own life. The guilt of leaving everyone behind just wasn’t really there. I couldn’t feel it because of the overwhelming emotions I was dealing with. It made me really understand how you were able to follow through with it. It becomes the only thought on your mind. It’s right there, just taunting you, daring you to chase it and end the pain. Because at a certain point ending the pain becomes more important than finding happiness. You said you had been seriously contemplating suicide for 5 months prior to completion. Well, start my timer then. I can’t see myself following through on it, but there’s some reality there. I’m just too weak though. Too easily controlled by other people and their emotions. Maybe it’s a good trait, to others it certainly is, but there’s a certain degree of admiration I have for you because of your choice. Not the part where you kill yourself, but the part that you always had, where you did what you thought was right. An impressive conviction and an I-don’t-give-a-fuck attitude that is unparalleled. You would have been damn successful in life. Not that “success” is everything, but it’s one more reason that makes your loss even more painful.

If you can see us, and you are watching, I’m sure you’ve seen your friends grow closer since you left. I hope you can see how this speaks to the impact you had upon us. It’s not the impact of your death, it’s the impact you had on us while you were with us. Only now that you’re gone, we’ve needed to become closer to make up for the lack of your presence. We’re trying our hardest, but it’s damn near impossible. I just want you to know that we all miss you dearly.

This past year has been difficult. I’ve had to deal with my best friend leaving, losing the ability to do everything I enjoy for extended periods due to injury, feeling trapped and powerless at home as well as a situation that was one superficial decision away from my death. How I wanted to slice open my wrist that night, but my own feeble insecurities made me do it on my leg instead, so that I wouldn’t have to go back to wearing long sleeved shirts every single day. I didn’t think anyone really noticed until she pointed it out when I was finally wearing t-shirts again. I knew I couldn’t go back to that without feeling self-concious all of the time, so I took the cop out and likely saved my own life. It’s pretty crazy to think about still. I don’t know if it was good or not, but it happened and I’m still here so that’s what I’m going off of.

Seeing your parents really put it in to perspective for me. It’s in their faces, that indescribable quality that something is missing. I wonder if that’s how other people see me. It was great to see them, but heartbreaking at the same time. I just don’t know what to think really.

This is quickly becoming an extremely long post and yet I still feel as if I haven’t hit any of the feelings I intended to. Maybe I have, and there’s just way more than I thought, but either way I still feel rather lost. I like to think that I have at least found some peace with your departure, but I know that peace doesn’t really equate to anything tangible. I know that the pain is still there and likely always will be.

Your dogs are both still around and I loved seeing them. Emma’s eyes are so cloudy now and she is obviously entirely blind at this point, but she’s still so nice and seemed to have a reasonable amount of energy for a dog so old. Patrick, of course, is still a complete nut. He’s put on a bit of weight (Emma has lost some for that matter) and he’s advancing in age noticeably but he’s still bouncing off the walls and a ton of fun to be around. I know how much you loved those dachshunds and more than anything else, they bring you back to me. Just seeing and playing with them, it brings so much back. So many memories, so many feelings. I love them so much for that, and I’m dreading the day they pass away. We bought/built a little star wars lego set for your mom, I hope she liked it and I hope you’d be pleased to see us try to do something like that for her. Your dad has seemingly started smoking, and while I know that’s not something you’d like (probably would hate), surely you can understand how difficult it’s all been for him. You loved him very much and he’s a really great guy, I love seeing and talking to him. There was clearly a lot of him in you and it’s just a nice reminder.

Starting to approach 2000 words so I should probably end this for any poor person who’s actually read it through to here. I know it’s rambling and incoherent at times most likely, but that’s okay. I hope you can read this Mac, in some way, and know just how much you are missed.

Peace and love buddy, we’ll never forget you.

2/2/93-27/6/10